A Perilous Proposal (32 page)

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ncle Templeton—my papa—recovered quickly and made good on his promise to stay and take care of things with the bank. We were able to retrieve enough of the gold Katie had thrown on the ground to pay off the second loan. Papa lived at Rosewood for the better part of the next year helping to get the plantation on a firm footing again. He learned all about crops and weather and ploughing and animals and cotton and wheat. He helped with our second harvest of cotton, getting blisters on his fingers, and his face and arms growing tan. He even learned how to milk cows!

After the harvest, we all enjoyed a quiet winter. I loved having my new family all together. Emma and William, my papa, and my cousin— cousin!
—
Katie. Add to that plenty of visits from a certain handsome young man, and I couldn't remember a time I'd been so happy. Fact was, I was beginning to think things were going along a mite too smooth to last.

I was right.

Our new troubles began in the spring of 1867, when my papa announced that he had to leave again. The new cotton crop was in and starting to come up, and
he figured it was a good time to be gone. He assured us it was only for a little while, a few weeks at most. He said he had some things to take care of from the past. He'd taken part in some less than upright business dealings and it was time to make amends. Once he took care of that, he said, he would be back. Back to stay.

And that's why we were alone—two years after Katie's scheme began—when the thing we'd been most afraid of finally happened.

S
omeone did arrive at Rosewood the next day, but it wasn't my papa. It was Josepha, the former house slave from the McSimmons place where Emma and me used to live. The big woman was crying and worn out from the long walk, but relieved to find us. Katie and I didn't want to spoil Josepha's happiness at being away from Mrs. McSimmons, but we had to tell her how things stood with Katie's uncle, and that none of us would likely have a home there for long.

When Katie's uncle Burchard came back a few weeks later, he gave Katie notice that we all had to be off the place by the end of the week. So me and Emma and little William, as well as Josepha, packed up our few belongings and got ready to head north. We didn't know exactly where we would go, just that we had to leave the next morning. I had no idea what would become of me, or whether I'd ever see Katie or Jeremiah again.

Henry and Jeremiah came out that evening to say their good-byes too. Ever since all this had been happening, Henry had been sorely grieved about the talk of us leaving. But he didn't have any solution to suggest. He and Jeremiah didn't have room to take us in. Henry
just rented two small rooms behind the livery from Mr. Guiness, the man he worked for. Even if there was room for three women and a baby, Mr. Guiness would never have stood for it, not to mention the townspeople. If the whites around had seen anything like that, they'd have had a fit. Henry didn't think Katie ought to leave, though, especially since she needed to be around when her uncle Templeton came back. So we all promised to keep in touch. It was still plain that Henry and Jeremiah didn't like the idea of us leaving. But what else could we do?

Jeremiah and I went for a long walk. But it wasn't anything like the ones we'd had earlier, because we knew we were saying good-bye and might not see each other for a long time. I thought Jeremiah wanted to ask me to marry him, and might have been fixing to. But he didn't, and I was glad. There wasn't any way I could leave Emma, not now, not the way things were. And Josepha'd never be able to take care of her alone. I thought down inside Jeremiah knew it too, and didn't ask 'cause he knew I'd have to say no. It wasn't that we didn't love each other. At least I knew I loved Jeremiah and was pretty sure he loved me too. But sometimes life gets in the way of love. And sometimes being black gets in the way of how you wish life could be.

It was a quiet walk. There wasn't much to say. My heart hurt, I was so full of love. The next day I was going to have to say good-bye to Katie, and tonight I was saying good-bye to Jeremiah, and the thought of that made me feel so full and so sad at the same time.

We walked a long way hand in hand in silence.

“I wish dere wuz sum way fer you not ter go,” said Jeremiah after a while.

“I'd give anything not to have to,” I sighed. “But Katie's done everything she can. And . . . Emma and
Josepha need me to go with them.”

“Why can't y'all stay in Greens Crossing sumplace?”

“Where, Jeremiah? Where could we stay? And Emma can't stay here. She's in danger. She's got to go somewhere else.”

“I reckon.”

Again it was quiet for a long while.

“I don't like da thought ob not seein' you agin,” said Jeremiah. “I'm a little feared dat you won't come back, dat you'll forgit all 'bout me an'—”

“Jeremiah,” I interrupted. “I will never forget you. I'll come back, just as soon as I can.”

“But what if you can't? What if sumfin happens ter you an' I ain't dere ter help you?”

“We'll be all right.”

“Dat soun's good, but sumtimes bad things happen an' folks can't do what dey want ter do.”

He let out a nervous and frustrated sigh
.

“It's jes' dat I thought dat sumday . . . you an' me, you know . . . might . . .”

I squeezed his hand. I did know! I had hoped so too. My heart was aching. I didn't want to leave him. But Katie's uncle would own Rosewood the next morning, and one thing he didn't want around the place was Negroes. We still didn't know where my papa, Templeton Daniels, was and hadn't heard from him.

“I will come back, Jeremiah,” I said again. “I promise. You just promise me you'll be here and won't go leaving looking for me or something and then neither of us ever find each other again.”

“I reckon I dun enuff travelin' lookin' fo my pa,” he said. “I figger I'll stay put roun' here fo a spell. Don't know where I'd go anyway.”

We arrived back at the house and Jeremiah gently took me in his arms and kissed me softly. “I best stop
now. Knowin' my luck, effen I keep on kissin' you, dat's right when yer pa would come back.”

I smiled but tears filled my eyes. “Then kiss me again,” I whispered, one teardrop spilling over and down my face.

He leaned close and kissed my damp cheek. “Dat ain't a kiss good-bye, hear?”

“What is it, then?”

“A promise to be here when you come back.”

After all our tearful good-byes, the next day we were in for a huge surprise. One of Katie's other uncles that she'd thought was dead suddenly turned up with the deed to the property. For someone who thought she had been left all alone in the world such a short time before, Katie sure had lots of kin that always seemed to be showing up! This Uncle Ward, Templeton Daniels' brother, had been the rightful owner of Rosewood all along, not Katie's uncle Burchard.

Burchard Clairborne was madder than he could be. But with Ward Daniels standing there holding the deed to the plantation and its land, there wasn't much for him to do but storm off.

Katie had never seen Ward Daniels before. For all she knew he would want us to leave too. But he turned out to be nothing like her uncle Burchard. He said we could all stay and that Katie could keep running Rosewood just like she had been. He didn't even seem to care that half of us were colored!

The only problem was that Emma, William, Josepha, and I had already left! So Katie and her uncle Ward came after us on horseback, leaving Henry and Jeremiah waiting back at Rosewood.